[Lnc-business] Various items

[James Lark]

Dear colleagues:

     I hope all is well with you.  I am writing to provide some 
information about various items; I hope this information is helpful to you.

1)  In a separate message I shall vote "aye" on the motion regarding the 
number of LP News issues published.  While I have a weak preference for 
publishing six issues rather than five, I am willing to approve allowing 
Mr. Benedict discretion in this matter (after consultation with the chair).

2)  In his message of June 28, Mr. Benedict suggested the possibility of 
holding an LNC meeting in DC at or about the same time as the Students 
For Liberty LibertyCon event next year.  While I understand the reasons 
for this suggestion, I strongly urge that the LNC not hold a meeting in 
conjunction with (or in proximity to) the LibertyCon event.

     There are several reasons for this, including the following:

*  If a two-day LNC meeting is held in conjunction with (or in proximity 
to) the event, and if we arrange the meeting schedule to allow members 
to attend parts of the event, we shall not utilize fully the 
opportunities afforded by an in-person meeting.  I suspect we shall have 
a great deal of business to conduct during what may be the penultimate 
meeting of the 2016-2018 term.  If the business we must conduct during 
that meeting can be handled in one day, then I believe we should meet 
for a second day to consider strategic matters and conduct some 
"blue-sky thinking."

     As an aside, the longer I have served on the LNC, the less keen I 
have become to support holding one-day meetings at the tail end of 
events such as FreedomFest and LibertyCon.  I realize there are 
advantages to holding one-day meetings; however, in all but one of the 
cases when the LNC has done so, I believe we would have been better 
served by holding two-day meetings.

*  As a matter of full disclosure, I am a member of the Board of 
Advisors of Students For Liberty, and I frequently participate in SFL 
events.  (Last Saturday I gave the keynote address at the annual SFL 
campus coordinators' retreat, which took place at Vanderbilt 
University.)  Based upon my previous experience at major SFL 
conferences, I anticipate being very busy with SFL-related activities on 
both Mar. 2 and Mar. 3 (and perhaps on Mar. 4).  In addition, I consider 
it likely that I shall be invited to give an address at the event.  (I 
have given addresses at each of the previous ten SFL international 
conferences.)

     Participation in an LNC meeting on Mar. 3 will force me to miss 
several important activities at LibertyCon.  In addition, an LNC meeting 
on Mar. 3 may mean that Mr. Benedict and other staff members will be 
unavailable (or at least, much less available) to conduct outreach at 
the event.

*  If we are going to meet in the DC area, I believe we should meet at 
the Marriott Residence Inn (the hotel near the office) rather than the 
Marriott Wardman Park or a hotel in that neighborhood.  I would be very 
surprised if we were unable to obtain a much better financial deal at 
the Residence Inn.

     Incidentally, I believe the "early bird" room rate for the 2017 
International Students For Liberty Conference at the Marriott Wardman 
Park was $149/night (I believe parking was around $45/night); I don't 
recall the "later bird" rate.  The Residence Inn room rate (which 
included a buffet breakfast) for the LNC meeting on Dec. 10-11, 2016 was 
$119/night (parking was $15 per night).  I don't know the relevant taxes 
for DC and Alexandria.

*  The LNC will meet on Dec. 9-10, 2017 in New Orleans and (presumably) 
on or about June 30, 2018 in New Orleans.  I suspect the LNC will have 
only one in-person meeting between the two New Orleans meetings.  I 
believe we would be better served holding that meeting in later 
March/early April, rather than early March.

3)  On June 18, I forwarded a message to you from Theo Chino concerning 
a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding S1241.  I 
subsequently requested that Mr. Chino provide some additional 
information; I have enclosed his response below, as well as his original 
message that I forwarded.  Please note that he responded several days 
ago; I apologize for the delay in relaying his response.

     As always, thanks for your work for liberty.  Best wishes to you 
for a wonderful Independence Day.

     Take care,
     Jim

     James W. Lark, III
     Dept. of Systems and Information Engineering
     Applied Mathematics Program, Dept. of Engineering and Society
     Affiliated Faculty, Dept. of Statistics
     University of Virginia

     Advisor, The Liberty Coalition
     University of Virginia

     Region 5 Representative, Libertarian National Committee
-----

Response from Theo Chino to my request for more information:

Dear Professor Lark,

The problem with the Bill is 2 words; "Digital Currency" - It has not 
been defined; and the two judges that really studied Bitcoins said it 
did not qualify as "money." /(However their word is not binding because 
one is a state case and the other was not judged on because of a plea 
bargain.)

/
As I was crafting my response I did not realize that there is a new case 
that include one of yours, Randall Lord: 
*https://www.lp.org/libertarian-party-condemns-government-persecution-of-bitcoin-exchange-vendor*

Bitcoin is so many different thing to different people; some call it a 
currency, other a new asset class, and a smaller group (myself included) 
a commodity. I came to the conclusion it was a commodity because none of 
the economic models for currency do apply to it; all the commodity 
models do. I felt I am back in 1510 when Copernicus first proposed the 
heliocentric theory. This is how people who agree with Copernicus must 
have felt like.

The Bill would add the term *"Digital Currency"* in the Money Laundering 
Statutes without any definition anywhere else.

It would just be what the people understand "Digital Currency" believe 
it is and it does let the definition defined by a federal judge in the 
Charlie Shrem case (which is tied to the Ulrich case [Silk Road]) be the 
definition. The problem is that he never defined it because it is not 
needed in criminal cases. Anything that is used for payment on an 
illicit transaction is forfeited (car, money, gold, horses, etc ...) To 
start an investigation you need to break a civil law; trading drug is 
illegal, trading bitcoin is not.

The DOJ (and our friend at the FBI) have being using the Criminal 
criminal reasoning to spy on us; out of the last four DOJ cases where 
Bitcoin was the reason to lunch an for investigation (this guy is using 
Bitcoin, therefore he is doing something illegal); the last three are 
stunning.

The first one is not morally defensible because the perpetrator was 
convicted of child pornography and was forbidden to be on a computer. He 
plead guilty but a judge did write a report that Bitcoin is not currency 
(and makes a good case) but that report can't be used because of the 
guilty plea. It's a non binding report.

The other three cases are worse from a freedom perspective; Arizona, 
Missouri, and Michigan. The one is Arizona story is still pending 
because the defendant want to fight it and has nothing to lose; he was 
charged on having a box of ammunition (this person, Morpheus, was 
forbidden to have weapon because of a old marijuana conviction. The FBI, 
ATF and Co were hopping to find a big stash of drug or weapon. Did not 
find anything.) The other two people plead guilty of not having 
registered as money transmitter; nothing more. They even paid their 
taxes. *And as I write, I discover one more, Louisiana.*

By adding "Digital Currency" in the law at this time will open the door 
for all the government entities to start investigations on people just 
because they trade bitcoins (or the new derivatives) and not because 
they were caught selling drug./

/The bill is a repeat of 2011 attempt when Chuck Schumer discovered Silk 
Road and Bitcoin.
Pierre, my lawyer, will send a copy of the letter in the next few days.

Regards
Theo Chino


Original message from Mr. Chino (forwarded to the LNC on June 18):

Dear Jim,

My name is Theo Chino and I am a Bitcoiner suing the State of New York 
over the Bitlicense in the municipal court that overseas the New York 
Departement of Financial Services.

I am writing you because Senator Grassley has reintroduced a bill that 
was originaly writen in 2011 in effect criminalizing Bitcoin exchanges.

I am CC my lawyer in this email because he is preparing a letter to the 
Senate Judiciary Committee to kill S1241 like it happened in 2011. He 
can explain the dichotomy of the two arguments. DOJ has arrested 5 
people and the same Senate Judiciary is in charge of DOJ.

*Theo Chino*
/https://article78againstNYDFS.com/advocacy.php/

From: Pierre Ciric
Sent: Friday, June 16, 2017 4:41:10 PM
To: Theo Chino
Cc: Jason Brett; Jeremy Kauffman
Subject: Re: S1451 / EFF

    Following Theo's request, we are preparing a letter to the attention
    of Nathan J Hallford, Senior Counsel at the Senate Judiciary
    Committee, focusing on two separate issues:

    - the letter seeks to have the committee withdraw the bill S1241
    (https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s1241), based on the
    legal position adopted by Theo before New York courts that Bitcoin
    lacks the characteristics of a financial product.
    - the letter seeks to alert the Judiciary Committee, which has
    oversight authority over the DOJ, about the recent prosecutions of
    Bitcoiners under the federal money transmitter statute, especially
    when no other criminal charge is being sought. The letter will argue
    that those prosecutions may be baseless based on the legal position
    adopted by Theo before New York courts that Bitcoin lacks the
    characteristics of a financial product.

    Once the letter is ready, we will send you a draft. We are seeking
    your concurrence so that we can indicate in the letter that your
    foundation supports this position. We are however not claiming that
    we represent you, only that you share Theo's position.



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